


I Could Do That

by yrfrndfrnkly



Series: Tales from the Townhouse [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Competitiveness, Cormac’s thigh envy, Crack Fic, Cross Country Skiing, Escapism, F/F, Gen, Ginny kicking everyone’s asses, Ginny-centric, Gym rats, Lectures, M/M, Minimalism, Nandos, Nordic Skater, Paintball, PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics, Rants, Verbal Sparring, biathlon - Freeform, binge watching, feminist parenting, gazing at Martin Fourcade, minor exercise injuries, not Ginny bc she’s above it all, sangria, sports fans, tangents, unwitting Olympian!Ginny, ‘friendly’ competition, ‘friendly’ wagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:17:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21708760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yrfrndfrnkly/pseuds/yrfrndfrnkly
Summary: It’s February 2018—Winter Olympics time—and Ginny’s partners and co-parents won’t let her escape Martin Fourcade’s thighs.
Relationships: Astoria Greengrass/Luna Lovegood/Ginny Weasley, Cormac McLaggen/Ron Weasley, Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Series: Tales from the Townhouse [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1565158
Comments: 13
Kudos: 38





	I Could Do That

**Author's Note:**

> I started this during the 2018 Olympics, because I love Winter sport and I adore biathlon, despite the guns. In my binging frenzy I started cracking myself up imagining how Harry and Draco would only binge watch if there were a hotty involved and how Ginny would 1) not relate, 2) think any non-airborne sport was a sham, and 3) crush it anyway, because that's how she rolls. Now this exists almost 2 years later. Oops!
> 
> Huge thanks to [ aibidil](https://aibidil.tumblr.com) for cheering beta read! You know you're the best!<3

**Sunday 11 February 2018—Men’s 10km sprint**

“Have you seen your mum this morning?” Ginny yawns and rubs sleep from her eyes.

“Which one?” Lily answers through a mouthful of cereal in that _what are you, a detective?_ way only a tween can manage. 

“Either? Both?” Ginny replies. “Or your dads? Where is everybody?” 

For fifteen years Ginny has been the last one in the townhouse awake on weekends. If there’s not a match or a practice to wake up for, she can’t see the appeal.

Lily shrugs unhelpfully as Ginny all but zombie walks to the counter where coffee awaits. Cormac’s over-large jogging bottoms slouch dangerously low around her hips and she has to ball up the excess material from the waist in one fist to keep from flashing her daughter. She pours herself a coffee and stirs in a massive dollop of butter with her free hand. (She’d bet Cormac he couldn’t clean and jerk over 175 kilos and wound up on post-gym laundry duty after losing. Of course, Cormac _had_ slipped a disc, and she’d been wearing his massive, comfy, laundered garments ever since, so who was the _real_ winner?)

Lily tips her bowl to her lips and downs the leftover greyish milk (grassfed (Cormac converted Luna years ago)) from the junk cereal she’s only allowed on weekends. 

“Roof of your mouth still intact?” 

“Yes, Mum,” Lily answers wearily. She grabs the box of Cap’n Crunch and pours herself a second bowl defiantly, while Ginny shuffles out of the kitchen in search of greener conversational pastures.

Down the corridor, she hears sounds of life from Astoria’s loo and just keeps walking. It’s best for every inhabitant of the townhouse that Astoria is left undisturbed while she gets made up. 

Ginny enters the sitting room near the front of the house and finds Draco on the sofa watching the telly. 

Watching… if she’s not mistaken—

“Is that skiing?”

“Shut up!” Draco shouts, waving his hand frantically in an attempt to silence her without ever looking away from the television.

“Excuse me?” Ginny says, suddenly feeling more awake. There’s nothing like a spot of verbal sparring to get her going.

“Draco!” Harry admonishes, as he enters the room carrying a greasy paper bag that promises baked goods. 

“Sorry.” Draco sounds unapologetic. “I don’t want to miss anything.”

“Miss…anything?” Ginny repeats dubiously. “In this sporting event.”

“Mmm,” Draco affirms.

“In which these athletes ski...slowly...on flat ground?”

“And uphill,” Draco corrects.

“C’mon, Gin,” Harry says, eyes on the telly and looking a bit hot around the collar. “It’s the Olympics! It’s exciting!”

“Right,” Ginny replies skeptically. “You two, who have been refusing to do so much as come for a morning jog with me for over a decade, are suddenly riveted by cross-country skiing.”

“For your information, it’s biathlon,” Draco interjects.

“What the fuck is biathlon?” 

“It’s better than cross country,” Draco says, still transfixed. “It’s got shooting.”

“Shooting?” Ginny is the first to admit that she’s not as expert on Muggle sports as her brother-in-common-law, but she’s pretty sure that’s an unlikely combination, if not downright dangerous. But she doesn’t have spare fucks to give about why Draco suddenly wants to watch a sport whose greatest attribute seems to be its ability to combine boredom with the possibility of mortal peril. “Look, have you seen Luna this morning?”

“No, sorry,” says Harry.

“I came down and threw on the telly while Harry went for danishes,” Draco adds, taking a bite off one with a cream cheese swirl.

“How long have you been in here?” Ginny asks.

“Don’t worry about it,” Draco answers.

“Wait a minute,” Ginny says. “Is this a recap? Are you rewatching ski-shooting?” 

“It’s a really interesting sport!” Draco argues cagily. 

“You’ve been holed up in here all morning rewatching the same event on repeat? Have you eaten brownies you confiscated as evidence again?”

“Of course not,” Draco says with a shudder. “Never again. Last time that happened, I had an appointment at Gringotts I couldn’t get out of, remember? I do _not_ recommend going to the bank while tripping balls. Astoria still hasn’t forgiven me for what I said to her boss.”

“Everyone watches too much telly when the Olympics are on,” Harry argues in defense of his lover. “It’s...patriotic.” 

“Of course.” Ginny smirks, taking a seat on the arm of the sofa. “Who’s representing Great Britain, then?”

“Err...”

“The nation-state is a harmful construct,” Luna says, as she enters the room and puts and arm around Ginny, kissing her on the cheek.

“That’s right,” Harry says, latching on. “I’m a well-known anti-government agitator. We’re watching to enjoy the...international cooperation that sport makes possible.”

“That’s wonderful, Harry.” Luna smiles.

“SHHHH!” Draco shushes. “They’re starting the standing shooting!” 

“Oh! Are these Muggle guns?” Luna asks. “I didn’t know Muggles attached beams to their feet to shoot. Does it help with balance?”

“Doesn’t look so hard,” Ginny sniffs, then leaves, deciding to risk it with Astoria after all. Maybe if she does that thing with her tongue, Astoria will forgive the interruption.

**Monday 12 February 2018—Women’s 10km pursuit and men’s 12.5km pursuit**

Ginny’s in a terrible mood. Not only had Astoria _not_ forgiven the interruption despite Ginny’s best attempts at distraction yesterday, but it rained torrentially during the Harpies’ practice and her players had groused like a bunch of fucking whiners all day. If the cup depended on a team’s ability to whinge about how the rain makes their knees ache, they’d have the championship in the bag.

Ginny enters the townhouse, hoping to be greeted with a sympathetic ear and a hot cuppa, but hears instead the unmistakable sound of television commentary.

She walks into the sitting room and finds Draco, Harry, and Luna virtually unmoved from where she left them yesterday, with the addition of Astoria in one of the recliners.

“Ginny!” Luna beams, patting the small area of empty space next to her on the large sofa. 

“What the fuck?” Ginny responds. You’re all _still_ watching ski-shooting?”

“Biathlon,” Luna corrects enthusiastically. “I’ve been reading about it.” She gestures to the iPad on the coffee table in front of her.

“Whatever,” Ginny says, unimpressed. She spent ten years playing Quidditch professionally, to say nothing of her time at Hogwarts, before she retired from the game to become a sports therapist, and she fails to see how shuffling along in the snow can be considered a “sport,” nevermind one worthy of this level of attention. “It doesn’t look that hard. Honestly, how skilled do you have to be to faff about in the bloody snow with a gun? I could do that.”

Draco snorts.

“It does look pretty difficult,” Astoria admits from her corner. “It’s very physically demanding, and it’s hard to shoot straight when your chest is heaving because your lungs are working overtime and the adrenaline is pumping.”

Ginny blinks, finding herself momentarily speechless. Magic is surely afoot. How else would she find herself in an upside-down world in which her exercise-dodging co-parents are all obsessing over what appears to be the most boring sport ever invented?

“I suppose you’ve been reading about it, too?” Ginny asks Astoria benignly. 

“Luna told us,” Harry answers. “She’s been reading out the Wikipedia article between replays.”

“You’re _still_ watching replays?”

“Um—”

“Nevermind that,” Ginny adds, realisation dawning. “How long have you all been in here?”

“I Flooed Robards and told him I couldn’t come in. I needed a personal day,” Draco answers.

“You what?” Ginny splutters, aghast that Draco, the worst workaholic among them, has taken the day off for anything less than an outbreak of Spattergroit.

“And Harry and I also decided to take the day off,” Luna answered. “It’s wonderful to be self-employed.”

“I joined them when I got in from the bank,” Astoria finishes. “I’ve barely been home an hour.”

“And who picked up Lily?” Ginny demands.

“We texted her and told her to take a minicab,” Harry says, as though it’s not his usual thing to text whoever is on school pick-up duty obsessively with reminders all afternoon. “She’s upstairs.”

“Riiiiight,” says Ginny, looking at the clock. “Well, it’s gone six now. I don’t suppose any of you have thought about what we’ll be serving Ron and Cormac for dinner when they get here in thirty minutes?”

Draco waves a hand dismissively. 

“We’ll order something when they get here,” Astoria decides. “C’mere.” 

Knowing a laurel branch when she sees it, Ginny gives Luna a kiss on her way to sit in Astoria’s lap.

*

“Sick! Olympics!” Cormac enthuses when he and Ron exit the Floo to find their loved ones sat in front of the telly.

“They’re obsessed,” Ginny laments, gesturing around the room. “They’ve been watching all day and we have nothing to feed you. Are you in the mood for Nando’s?”

“No woz, Gin Rummy,” Cormac answers. “We always abide by the BYOB rule.” Cormac gestures to a thermos under his arm. “Have broth, will travel.”

Ron, who's _almost_ as into health food as his partner, but who also loves a good takeaway, looks anguished at the thought of guzzling broth for the zillionth time while five people eat peri peri in front of him. Cormac, who’s shockingly attentive when it comes to her brother, unbuttons his jeans and announces to Ron, “Buckle up, babe. Let’s have a cheat night.”

Ron looks like his ship has come in.

Cormac winks at Ginny and tells her he’ll have a broth chaser.

As they wait for the food to be delivered, Luna informs Cormac and Ron about the “intricacies” of ski-shooting.

When the food arrives, Ginny asks the room at large, “I suppose _I’ll_ get it, shall I?” and heads out to pay for their chicken.

She returns, food in hand. “Are we eating in the kitchen?”

“Are you mad?” says Ron. “They’ve just started prone shooting!” As though he even knows what that means.

“Have a seat,” Luna offers. “We can eat in here. Accio plates! Accio silverware!”

Ginny’s helping herself to first choice, thank you very much, when Cormac suddenly roars, “What a fucking hunk!”

“Who?” Ginny asks absently, now helping herself to a healthy portion of chips.

“Hm?” Harry intones, aiming for nonchalance and missing by a mile. 

“Him.” Ron points at the telly where a man with short-cropped hair is lying on his stomach trying to shoot a target.

“That’s Martin Fourcade,” Astoria informs them.

“He represents France,” Luna appends. 

Ginny looks at the man in question and sees, well, a man... shooting. He doesn’t look like anything special to her. Nor has she been convinced that his sport is anything to write home about. “You’ve learned all their names and nationalities already?” 

“No,” comes Astoria’s answer.

“Just his; he’s the only one Harry and Draco knew,” Luna elaborates. “I can look up the roster though.” She reaches for her iPad. 

“No need, Luna,” Harry says, dismissively.

“Here, have some chicken.” Draco offers her a bag of takeaway. 

Ginny looks from the telly to Harry and Draco, who are both wearing blushes and squirming a bit, and snorts before making up a plate for Lily and heading upstairs.

When she returns, everyone is still watching with rapt attention. Ginny actually tries watching for a few minutes, but fails to understand how any sport can be considered impressive when it’s played with both feet on the ground.

Getting bored, she starts to ask after George. “Ron, how’s—”

“Quiet!” Draco demands.

“This is the most exciting part! They’re nearing the finish now!” Luna advises.

“How many times have you watched this race?” Ginny demands, but no one answers as the Frenchman, whatever his name was, crosses the finish line first and collapses.

The room erupts in cheers. 

When they die down, Cormac is the first to speak. “Mates, biathlon is sick. How ripped do you think their legs need to be to ski uphill? Do you think it’s hard to learn to shoot?”

“Don’t ask Dad about it,” Ron and Ginny instruct as one.

“It is impressive,” Luna agrees.

“Luna, you hate guns!” Ginny reminds her. 

“It is true that biathlon began as a military exercise,” Luna admits. “But this seems like harmless competition.”

“It’s not like they’re shooting at one another,” Astoria agrees, coming to Luna’s defence.

“Maybe,” Ginny says, as though her own career hasn’t involved years of encouraging Gwenog Jones to swing her bat hard enough to break the other team's bones. “But so impressive that you and Harry and Draco missed work to watch the same race over and over?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Ron says. “They skipped work to check out that bloke—Fourcade, did you say his name was?”

“Hm? Oh yes, Fourcade,” Draco says hastily.

“But we’re not watching just for him!” Harry pipes up.

“Sure we’re not,” Astoria says sarcastically. 

“I am,” admits Luna.

“Luna?!” Ginny says in disbelief. “You’ve never fancied a bloke!”

Luna shrugs. “He’s fit.”

“I’d mount him.” Ron nods his head appreciatively at the telly without a hint of shame.

“We all would,” Cormac agrees. “But they’re not watching _just_ for him. We’re going to watch the women’s events too, right?”

Astoria, Luna, Ron, Harry, and Draco all shrug, and Cormac launches into a well-worn rant about sexism in sport, from the woeful lack of coverage and viewership to the condescending reduction of kilometers in women’s races. “Right, Gin and Tonic?” he finishes.

“Women are just as athletic as men,” Ginny agrees reflexively. “But I still say this is barely a sport—I could definitely trudge through the snow and hit a stationary target.”

“You can’t shoot! You’ve never so much as seen a Muggle gun in real life!” Draco has a look in his eyes. Ginny knows it well. It’s the look that comes over him when he’s about to lose money. 

“Bet you a hundred Galleons I can.”

“You’re on! I’ll bet I can shoot better than you,” Draco retorts childishly. “It must be similar to Recreational Reducting.” He sniffs in a superior manner.

“Are you telling me that generations of Malfoys have shot Reductos at clay pigeons over Malfoy Manor?” Harry asks, looking equally amused and aroused.

“Maybe,” Draco says, lapping it up. “It’s not clay though, there’s a target spell; you can make it glow a different colour depending on how centred your hit is and—”

Ginny leaves them to it.

**Wednesday 13 February 2018—No Event**

With elite biathletes from across the globe taking the day off and Lily safely at school, Ginny finds herself spending a day off at an indoor paintball palace in rural England. Once Ginny and Draco had got to wagering, it hadn't taken long for Draco’s competitive streak to kick in full force, which triggered Harry’s. They were all egged on by Astoria, shit disturber extraordinaire. Cormac proposed laser tag (“They have strobe lights and play that banger from Mortal Cobat!”), but Ginny insisted a(n almost) real gun was essential. The better to shoot Draco’s smarmy arse with.

“Oh! Like in _Good Omens_!” Luna says, taking in the kitchy faux battle field around them—large heaps of boxes and very wide cylinders are strewn about to provide cover.

“Shall I do a Crowley, dear heart, and Transfigure all the paintball guns into the real deal?” Astoria jokes.

“I could be Aziraphale!” Luna enthuses. “I could bewitch all the bullets to _just_ miss everyone.”

“That might defeat the purpose of our trip to Lower Tadfield,” Astoria observes.

“I’m not leaving till I’ve shot Draco in the arse,” Ginny insists. It’s going to be so satisfying. She can just tell.

After a _very_ brief safety demonstration, the group are told to split into two teams, and asked which colour pellets they favour. Harry chooses pink for him, Draco, and Ron, while Luna insists that the resonance of the lurid green matches her, Astoria, Ginny, and Cormac’s group vibe. 

“Sorry Luna,” Ginny says, grabbing a canister of orange paintballs. “I’m going rogue.”

By the end of their pre-paid hour, Ginny has shot everyone, including Draco three times—once on the goggles and twice on the arse in the _same spot_, thank you very much. Her own clothes and skin are paint free.

“I told you I could do it,” she tells the others, all rubbing burgeoning bruises as they walk away from the paintball joint and towards a secluded spot to Apparate home. Draco grumbles and reaches for his wallet.

**Thursday 15 February 2018—Women’s 15km individual and Men’s 20 km individual**

Ginny is having a good day. She’s still riding the high of her Rambo vibes from two days prior, and she checked the Olympic schedule to find that there are not one but two new biathlon events today. Though she’d prefer there were none, she’d rather overhear _new_ sounds emanating from the sitting room than the same ones over and over. Sure, she’s still coming home to no dinner and four dweebs camped out in front of the telly, but she’ll get to choose dinner by default and rub Draco’s bruises and the loss of 100 Galleons in his face. Damn, it’s good to be alive. 

She’s leading Lily home from school and preparing some choice insults about Draco’s utter lack of aim when a sight stops her in her tracks.

Her four nearest and dearest are _not_, in fact, gathered ‘round the telly. They are here, outside, on their street, gathered around a truly bizarre-looking contraption on the kerb.

“What are they doing?” Lily asks in the tones of a youth whose parents are unmitigated embarrassments.

“I have no idea,” Ginny answers.

Lily rushes inside, lest she be seen with this group of dufuses and judged uncool by association.

“What the hell is that thing?” Ginny demands. “You’re not breaking the Statute of Secrecy again, are you? It was a nightmare last time Draco had to arrest himself.”

“No worries—totes legal,” Cormac assures her. “It’s a Nordic Skater. Arrived this morning. Rad, eh?”

“Amazon Prime,” Ron whispers, knowing better than to invite one of Luna and Harry’s lectures about dangerous mega corporations.

“We’ve just finished assembling it,” Astoria tells Ginny. “I say 'we.' I mean Luna and I, obviously. Cormac is a bit… energetic for delicate assembly. And those three—" she points at Harry, Ron, and Draco, "are worse than useless."

“Don’t blame me! I’m wounded! My arse still hurts from yesterday,” Draco grouses, rubbing the twice-shot cheek with a palm for dramatic emphasis, as Ginny approaches. 

“Preaching to the choir,” Harry jokes, elbowing Draco playfully in the ribs and waggling his eyebrows. Draco blushes and smirks simultaneously.

Cormac whoops and offers a flat palm to Harry for a high five of solidarity. “So, is it ready, Storytime?” Cormac asks Astoria in a polite tone before pushing his luck. “Can I have first go?”

**Saturday 17 February 2018—Women’s 12.5km mass start**

“Ugh,” Draco groans, ensuring the whole room knows of his agonies. 

“I hear you,” Harry commiserates.

Their test runs of the Nordic Skater had gone much as Ginny, a former professional athlete and current professional sports therapist, expected (and, she thinks with perverse gratification, warned them about loudly and repeatedly, calling from the kitchen window to the neighbours’ chagrin). Harry, Draco, and Astoria are still in agony from their biceps to their abs to their gastrocnemiuses, and are making their pains known from their spots sprawled on the floor (still very much in view of the telly, where Martin Fourcade is skiing to their lusty delight). Cormac and Ron, gym rats, and Luna, an avid hiker (a hobby she insists needs to be kept solitary for the good of her communal-living sanity) are faring better, but Cormac looks nothing short of downtrodden that his pecks are smarting after the intense upper body workout on the Nordic. 

“I thought my circuit was so well rounded,” he sighs. Ron claps him on the back. “I spent months planning out the perfect strength-training routine. How could this have happened?” Cormac’s voice is bereft.

“It’s okay, babe,” Ron assures in somber, placating tones. “We can make some tweaks once the Olympics are over.”

“Yeah.” Cormac sighs again, heavily. “I wish I had thighs like Fourcade.”

“What do you have to complain about?” Draco demands from his spot on the floor. “At least you can move!”

“Speaking of which,” Astoria pipes up, “Get some Pellegrino in here, could you Cormac? I’m still parched from yesterday.”

“You ought to have drunk more after your turn on the Nordic Skater, Astoria,” Luna remonstrates lightly. “It’s much easier to prevent dehydration than to rehydrate and—”

“Shh!” Draco calls for silence. “The Men’s individual is starting.”

Ginny legs it. She’s been to the gym three times today, but a fourth can’t hurt.

**Sunday 18 February 2018—Men’s 15km mass start**

By Sunday, Ginny finds herself in the odd and infuriating position of having effectively become a single parent despite ostensibly sharing the duty with four others, and that’s not counting Ron and Cormac, who have taken up residence in the sitting room (leaving only for gym breaks) with the rest of the hornswagglers, plus—as of last night—Hermione, Pansy, and Blaise, who came round for supper (i.e., more Nando’s—Ginny draws the line at enabling these gazers by cooking for them), saw that French dude on television, and never left.

At least Pansy had the good grace to bring a magically refilling container of sangria with her. Of course, the downswing to that is that they are all now _drunk_ and leering. Ginny sent Lily off to stay the night at the Burrow for the sake of her budding feminism.

Roused by Fourcade’s two gold medals, the fervor in the sitting room has only become more grotesque. And Ginny can’t decide what’s worse, an embarrassment of adults pushing forty skiving off work to group-perv on a twenty-five-year-old, or the the marathon of fucking that is sure to ensue once they manage to tear themselves away from the telly and need to put all that pent-up lechery somewhere. Ginny spares a thought for her collection of strap-ons upstairs: could be worse.

“How many fucking ski-shooting events are there?” Ginny complains.

“Ten all told—that’s men and women’s,” Hermione answers, having lapped up every factoid Luna had to offer from Wikipedia. “Did you know know it started as a military-training exercise?”

“I had heard that twelve or thirteen times, yeah,” Ginny replies, exasperated.

“But don’t worry, Rin Tin Gin, Draz and Mizzle are drafting a letter to the IOC about that.”

“What?” Ginny asks reflexively, before realising that she really does not care.

“They’re petitioning them to include more disciplines,” Pansy explains.

“Fourcade will still be young enough to compete next time, I suppose?” Blaise inquires, as though it’s the only pertinent detail.

“It’s a personal decision, as well as determined by his fitness level,” Luna answers. “He already competed in two previous Olympics though, so who knows.”

The prospect of reliving this nightmare in four years hadn’t occurred to Ginny. She can’t possibly endure it again. Fourcade _must_ retire. 

“He’s brilliant,” Ron says, starry eyed. Ginny is powerfully reminded of his teenaged Krum phase, and thinks she probably should have seen Cormac coming. 

“Hello!” Ginny says, gesturing to herself. “I was a professional athlete for over a decade too, if you’ll recall.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Draco dismisses. “Not a biathlete, though, were you?”

Ginny tips her head backwards and lets out a mighty groan. “I threw balls through hoops while staying on a broomstick and dodging bludgers. Quidditch?” she asks, sarcastically. “Anyone remember Quidditch? If I can Chase for the Harpies I think I could shoot some silly targets while _not_ airborne.”

“Reliving the glory days.” Draco shakes his head in faux dismay. “Sad.”

“Lily!” Ginny bellows, leaving the sitting room and heading upstairs towards the bedrooms. “Want to go to the climbing wall then grab a full English?” 

If Lily declines, Ginny will resort to offering to take her to the Apple store. She has to get out of here. Even if she could bear to listen to the same ski-shooting commentary repeatedly until the Mass Start begins (and, let’s face it, once it’s over (she can now recite verbatim the broadcast of every biathlon race, much to her dismay)), she can neither let Lily bear witness to such sustained gaze mongering nor shame her partners, best friends, and co-parents for their raunchier feelings. 

After breakfast, Lily and Ginny return to the townhouse. Ginny’s key is barely out of the lock, the door scarcely ajar, when Cormac’s sangria-lubricated voice sounds from the sitting room.

“Seriously though! Look at those thighs! He could plough you right through the mattress!” He sounds equal parts enthusiastic and jealous. In her mind’s eye, Ginny can see him looking at his own tree-trunk-like thighs as though they’ve betrayed him by not being Olympic-level.

“Nope,” Ginny says, locking the door again. 

Lily giggles. “It’s okay, Mum; I know what ploughing means—”

“I’m sure you do,” Ginny says, reaching into the deepest depths of her parenting-book-reading psyche to draw upon all of her sex-positive self-training. “And we can talk about it in the car.”

“Where are we going?” Lily asks, following Ginny back down the front steps.

“A spa.” It’s the first place to come to mind. She will get six or seven back-to-back massages. 

**Tuesday 20 February 2018—Mixed 2 x 6km / 2 x 7.5km relay**

Ginny wakes the next morning with a plan. She’s got it all worked out. There will be no asinine speculations about skiing or shooting or Frenchmen or ploughing this morning. She’s alone in bed, Luna and Astoria having abandoned her to watch another event. Ginny wills the voice of Cormac in her head to stop drilling her about the importance of the mixed relay and gender parity in elite-level sport. 

She stretches one arm out from under her duvet and grabs at the handle on her side table drawer. She doesn't bother being careful or quiet; a benefit of being alone is she doesn’t need to fuss about waking her partners. 

“The fuck am I doing?” Ginny scolds herself. She shouldn’t have to be relieved, she thinks as she gets the drawer open and pulls out a packet of Dinosaur Eggs sitting jauntily in a bowl. She’d placed them there last night. This is the plan: wake up, eat Lily’s sugary ‘oatmeal’ in bed (messily, getting flecks of milk, oats, and sugar on the sheets to drive Astoria batty), shower, get dressed, Floo to work directly from the hearth in the bedroom. Ginny thought that adding in a second chimney was A Bit Much after they bought the bog standard, single-chimney townhouse, but Astoria (_her Fourcade-coveting nibs_, Ginny thinks ruefully)—thought otherwise. Today it’s paying dividends.

After she eats and leaves her used bowl right in the bed (_have that!_ she mentally taunts future Astoria), Ginny heads to the bathroom for a shower. 

When she emerges, hair washed and brushed, Ginny heads to her closet to collect some work clothes. They don’t have a chest of drawers anymore, not since Luna read Marie Kondo and insisted that all extraneous bedroom furniture was harshing her vibes. Now all their clothing is in the massive closet: Astoria’s crisp and pressed, each item on an individual wooden hanger; Ginny’s rolled up and slotted haphazardly into one of those Muggle hanging organisers meant for shoe storage; and Luna’s in a heap in the corner that she insists is organised in a method the rest of them just haven’t wisened up to yet. Ginny chuckles to herself at the thought—she’s not sure if Luna is shitting them or totally serious. Both are equally plausible.

After Ginny’s shimmied into a pair of practical black pants and pulled a matching black blazer over a scoop necked pull-over, she heads towards the hearth. As she does, though, it hits her that despite the sounds of the spoon scraping the bowl or the shower running or clothes rustling, the house is unnaturally quiet. She hasn’t heard so much as a peep from downstairs, which, at her last count, was the lusting ground of at least seven people. At the very least, Draco should be calling out warnings to Lily to get off her phone and into the car he’s ordered (Tuesdays are his days for drop off and pick up).

But nothing. Not so much as a ‘whoop’ from the horny sports fans. 

Ginny clenches her jaw and actually growls, turning her head aggressively towards her bedroom door before storming out of it and down the stairs to the sitting room, which is empty, just like the kitchen and—she finds after a cursory search of the house—every other room. Trampling back into the sitting room, Ginny notices something this time—something out of the ordinary with their television.

There’s a note Spellotaped to it. It reads: _Gone skiing. Back in time for the mixed relay!_

**Thursday 22 February 2018—Women’s 4 x 6km relay**

By the second Thursday of the Olympics, Ginny is running out of tasks outside the house to complete and she now holds three separate gym memberships to avoid going to the same place several times a day. 

But she has a new idea: she’ll starve them out. She’s stopped grocery shopping; she’s been supplying Lily with protein bars from a secret stash in the tank of the toilet and taking her out for dinner around London each evening. Of course, modernity is sabotaging her plan. Though the crew in her living room have proven themselves unwilling to leave the house for anything less than ludicrous day trips, they don’t need to go anywhere to order takeaway on their mobiles.

Fucking Deliveroo.

Thwarted, Ginny’s doing everything she can to stay out of the house. She’s offered to work overtime with the Harpies, but as it’s the off-season, the players aren’t spending much extra time at the pitch themselves. She’s been going to the gym three times a day (four on weekends) since it all began. And when Lily made a bold request to have a weeknight sleepover at Bianca’s last night, Ginny gave her an enthusiastic, “Yes!” She only wishes she could join them. 

She needs more friends.

By mid-afternoon, she’s grumpy enough to wander into the sitting room to let off a few insults before trying to find something else to do. There’s a new event playing on the telly; Ginny knows instantly it’s live, because she doesn’t recognise the commentary, nor each and every frame of footage. It appears to be a women’s event.

“Women’s sports!” Cormac raises a fist as Ginny enters. She levels a glare at him.

“I like the relays,” Luna adds. “They’re co-operative.” She smiles earnestly.

“But still competitive,” Astoria appends. “They have national teams but one team still has to win.”

“It’s going to be Sweden,” Draco asserts. “They have the strongest anchor—”

“Not France?” Ginny teases. 

“They’ll take the men’s relay. Fourcade—”

“Shut up, Draco,” Ginny instructs.

In the end, Belarus upset Sweden, and Draco hands a smug-looking Astoria ten Galleons.

“I’m going to try it out for real,” Luna informs them all. “Cross country might be a fun alternative to hiking in winter.”

“Can I come, Moonshine?” Cormac asks, practically buzzing with excitement. “It looks brutal on the thighs,” he says, reverently. 

“Cormac, you know Luna always goes solo—” Ginny begins, asserting Luna’s boundaries because _she_ is a good partner.

“I’d love that,” Luna interjects. “We could try having a relay! It could be a team-building experience. Will you come, Ginny?” Luna asks, eyes sparkling. “If you come we can race five against five!”

“Yes,” Ginny agrees without hesitation. Anything, _anything!_ to get them out of the house. It’s been this side of ripe for well over a week

“You’ll pwn us all like a bunch of fucking nubbins,” Cormac says with excitement.

“I will,” Ginny affirms philosophically.

**Friday 23 February 2018—Men’s 4 x 7.5km relay**

When Ginny and Lily return home late that evening, the mood in the townhouse is… grim.

There is no telly calling out who’s vying for first, no excitement from the group of chumps in the sitting room about how mighty Fourcade looks when he’s goofing around on a pair of planks.

“Mum?” Lily whispers, and Ginny shrugs. She has an overwhelming compulsion to be quiet, to tread lightly. It’s like entering a house in mourning.

Ginny pushes open the door to the sitting room, and sees all of her comrades are still there, only now the telly is off. There are takeaway cartons strewn around the room. Astoria is sitting on the sofa with Luna’s head in her lap. Harry and Draco are leaning against one another on the floor, looking like tyres whose air has been let out; Hermione, Blaise, and Pansy have cleared out and Ron is—no shit—rubbing circles on Cormac’s back as Cormac wipes tears off of his cheeks.

“What the fuck happened?!” Ginny demands, taking in the melancholy scene and fearing the worst. “Are Mum and Dad alright—”

“It’s— it’s— it’s—" Cormac hiccoughs.

“It’s what?!” Ginny yells.

“It’s ALL OVER!” Cormac lets out a yowl of despair.

“And France didn’t even win!” Astoria shouts crossly.

“Four more years, Gin,” Ron says, shaking his head as though sharing dismal news.

“Summer Olympics in two years,” Luna offers, but her usual pep is lacking.

“It’s just not the same,” Draco says, as though it’s a fact, and shakes his head.

“I can’t believe it’s over,” Cormac cries from his armchair. Ron, sitting on the arm, rubs more vigorously. 

“We’ll follow the World Cup events, babe. It’ll be okay.”

Ginny launches into a tirade at everyone assembled in the room that her home will _not_ be the site of multi-month drool fests during each World Cup season, and, more to the point, how they’re a bunch of saps for fooling themselves into thinking they care about this boring sport just because of some “hunk” in his mid-twenties.

“I’m telling you all, it’s nothing special! I could do that!” She gestures aggressively to the blank television screen. 

But it’s pointless: her Very Reasonable and Hot Takes are drowned out by Cormac’s bereaved wails and Harry’s concerns that Fourcade might retire now that he’s competed in three Olympic games and won five gold medals.

**Beijing 2022**

A voice rings out over the Tannoy.

“This forty-two-year-old mother of four took the sport by storm completely out of left field after Pyeongchang. Not much is known about her athletic background, except she played some sort of rural sport competitively before strapping on the freestyle skis and picking up the rifle. But Weasley has been quite cagey about her past, hasn’t she, Jane?”

“She has, Rick; Weasley is a fierce competitor and prefers to keep most details of her personal life private.”

“Well, _some_ of them. World Cup viewers may recall that _both_ of Weasley’s partners turned heads when they showed up at the last event to cheer her on.”

“Wanker!” Ginny shouts into the snowy stadium, sound muffled by the falling flakes.

“Having the press pry into your personal life is an issue for most famous athletes, but there’s a lot of sexism around sport journalism,” Jane tells Rick and the crowd. “In the past _some_ reporters have taken it upon themselves to pry—”

“And you’ve been outspoken about this since you retired, haven’t you Jane? Those new to biathlon may not know you literally wrote the book on it after your last Olympics. Since we’re live before the watershed, I’ll give the viewers the censored title: _Eff Off, I’m Holding a Gun_.”

“I’ll send you a copy, Rick.”

“Free promotional material! Who says it doesn’t pay to be friends with celebrities—”

“It’ll be twenty quid— But wait! Weasley’s just entered the shooting area for her final showdown with the target; the athletes will be standing this time—”

“And viewers will please excuse Weasley’s hand gesture there; we are live, after all.”

“I think that was for you, Rick.”

_Bless Jane_, Ginny thinks, as she slings her rifle off her shoulder. _Wonder how much time I’d do for shooting Rick in the arm..._

“Hahaha… Well, her chest is absolutely heaving from the effort! Weasley’s given herself a comfortable lead here in the mass start, but she’s going to need to get her heart rate down quickly if she wants to shoot clean—missing a shot will cost her time.”

_I could miss all five and still outski everyone,_ Ginny thinks, breathing long and deep to steady her breath.

“Let’s watch Weasley at work here. She’s known for taking quite a bit of time to gather herself before she starts shooting and then making all of her shots quickly. One of her partners is a meditation teacher, and Weasley says starting her own practice has helped her with her focus.”

Ginny clothes her eyes, breathes and breathes and tunes out everything else. It’s hard, because she knows how close she is to winning _another_ bet with Draco. That’ll be better than the fucking gold medal. But she’s a professional. She can focus up. She keeps breathing, and feels the heave of her chest lessening with each inhalation. She opens her eyes, braces her gun, resists the urge to point it at Rick (just to scare him, honest!), and takes aim. She can do this. She will do this. And Draco will be doing her share of the housework for the rest of their lives. Ginny has to suppress a laugh—she plans to live to 200. But there’ll be plenty of time to cackle and crow later. 

Breathe. And shoot.

“And her technique is paying off here in Beijing! Look at that! Weasley’s got one— no, two clear already! And— yes! There’s three—”

“And four clean. Aaaand, can she go five for five? She can!” Jane cheers over the Tannoy. “This is Weasley’s race to lose, Rick. If she can stay on her feet, she’ll be just fine; there are only three other athletes in the shooting area, and none of them are through all of their targets yet.”

Ginny doesn’t even have to ignore the commentary, after concentrating hard, she can’t hear anything. She slings her gun back over her shoulder and skis. Beyond the shooting area, she can see Cormac—her coach, as it were—bounding up and down in the snow like a massive puppy.

Ginny skis towards him. She’s exhausted, but now’s not the time to think about it. In four years, she’s refused to admit aloud that biathlon is hard. She’s not giving in today. 

“You machine!” Cormac yells, running alongside her now as she skis down the home stretch towards the finish line. “You fucking machine!” He’s punching the air so hard Ginny thinks she’ll be putting his shoulder back in its socket when she’s done.

“Give me my flag!” Ginny calls to one side, and Cormac nearly trips over himself between keeping his footing in the deep snow and pulling his rucksack off one shoulder so that he can reach into it while still running.

“Weasley is living the dream today,” Jane’s voice announces. “Every _bi_athlete wants to relish crossing the finish line. It’s always fun for spectators to watch a race that comes down to the line, but these athletes are exhausted.”

“Weasley’s showing no signs of flagging. She’s drinking it all in, look at the smile on her face. And her coach is handing her a flag to carry with her over the line— only, that’s not a union flag! It looks like a rainbow pride flag— only, no, not quite. Viewers, I’m not sure—”

“It’s the bi pride flag, Rick.”

Ginny holds it over her head and waves it with all her remaining energy as she crosses the finish line.

“And she’s done it! Weasley’s done it!” Jane screeches. “She’s won the gold—”

“And there’s her coach, McLaggen—also her brother-in-law—”

“Brother-in-common-law, Rick.”

“Right... well...”

Cormac saves Ginny the trouble of collapsing by pouncing on her about a nanosecond after her race is run.

“McLaggen has jumped on top of Weasley—he looks even happier than she does! Weasley’s coach is crying tears of joy, and Weasley is yelling something at him, but we can’t hear it from here.”

“I told you I could do it!” Ginny shrieks in Cormac's face between heavy gasps for breath. “I told you!” GASP. “I could do it!” GASP. “Piece of piss!” GASP.

“And here comes the rest of Weasley’s family to celebrate—”

“Oh my!” 

“Weasley’s partners have vaulted the stands, and their children are right behind them.”

“One can only imagine what Weasley’s feeling right now; the feeling of accomplishing a lifelong dream, no doubt. She’s probably been dreaming of this moment since she was a girl, imagining what it would feel like to cross the finish line with her rifle over her shoulder.”

Astoria and Luna lunge onto Ginny and Cormac, crying, laughing, and kissing Ginny’s face everywhere they can reach. Lily, Al, Scorpius, and James make it a true dog pile a few seconds later. Draco, Ron, and Harry aren’t far behind. Ron and Harry are beaming, and Draco’s smiling, but not fully able to hide a soupçon of a pout. Ginny laughs into someone’s hair uproariously—how sweet is victory! Since Draco lost, she doesn’t have to introduce anyone to Fourcade.


End file.
